The food bank’s fastest growing program, Food for Thought™, provides severely at-risk children with a backpack filled with nutritious child-friendly foods for them to take home on the weekends, when they might otherwise go hungry.

The program is designed to allow students to get the assistance without drawing any attention to themselves by using backpacks, which look like any other student’s backpack.

During the 2006-2007 school year, nearly 7,800 backpacks were filled. Twenty-five schools now benefit from this innovative, life-saving program!

Thanks to your support and partnerships with Female Leaders in Philanthropy, a United Way women’s initiative, and the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, we have expanded the Food for Thought program into a total of 25 elementary schools this year. Thanks to these two organizations, schools located within Springfield benefit from the Food for Thought program.

Note: Ozarks Food Harvest prefers monetary donations for the Food for Thought™ backpack program because The Food Bank can purchase the specific items at a bulk, discounted rate. In the past, OFH asked for easy-open, single serving items, but now purchases those items and requests for donations of toothbrushes and small toothpastes.